Tag: loggerheads

(Sunday 29^th March, 2026)

There was a south-westerly blowing this morning, although we escaped the worst of the gusts by virtue of being in the woods at Loggerheads Country Park in Denbighshire. It was still a bit chilly (8°C) but I think we’re all becoming accustomed to this topsy-turvy ‘spring’ weather. At least it was dry.

    Just as we joined the Leete path from the little stone bridge near the mill, we saw a Song thrush fly in and settle on a high branch of one of the trees upstream from us. We’ve seen both Song thrushes and Mistle thrushes in these woods over the years but we’re seeing them less and less as time passes – nationally, both are in decline.

    Nuthatches, on the other hand, have greatly increased their numbers since the 1970s and we often see them hopping up and down tree trunks, or flitting about filching nuts and seeds.

This Nuthatch used ‘diversionary’ tactics to conceal its food source…

Today was no exception and it is amusing to watch them fly from tree to tree, executing a sort of diversionary route – presumably to foil either predators or, more probably, to avoid revealing their food source to other birds. Mind you, there was little they could do once the Carrion crow discovered their source!

    …but the Carrion crow discovered it anyway!

Apart from the odd bit of hawthorn blossom here and there, the trees are generally free of any foliage (well, not counting the evergreens). But I don’t think it will be too long before everything begins to flourish. We noticed, for example, the aroma of wild garlic which reached us when the occasional gust of wind pushed through the woods. There is an abundance of garlic leaves to be seen on either side of the River Alyn, but no sign of the plant’s distinctive white flowers just yet.

False turkey-tail (we think!)

    There are other signs that spring (or should that be summer?) is finally on the way. We watched, transfixed as two Robins circled around us, flying close to the ground, disappearing then re-emerging from the undergrowth. Male and female Robins look very similar and are difficult to sex but, as neither of these birds was acting in the typical territorial mode that Robins usually display, we’re fairly confident that we were watching a male and female.  One of them posed for the camera, as you can see below!

    We saw another pairing shortly afterwards: on a few of our visits to Loggerheads over the last few months, we’ve spotted a single Grey wagtail at various stretches of the river. Today we saw two together, although they’d separated before Stu managed to get a photograph of both of them simultaneously. It was encouraging to see though, and hopefully they’ll manage to breed successfully.

After last week’s success at Burton Wetlands, Stu managed to capture another Grey squirrel on film – it seems like they’ve finally grown tired of hiding from him!

The important stuff

Over to The Mill House café (Tŷ’r Felin) for a cappuccino each and a Blondie Jammie-dodger (Col) and Millionaire’s shortcake (Stu). Scrumptious!  

(Sunday 28^th December, 2025)

    Sometimes you just get lucky. We were just about to leave Loggerheads Country Park, in Denbighshire, and head home. Before we did so, we thought we’d take a last quick look from the little bridge opposite the We Three pub. Looking upstream, we caught glimpses of yellow as tiny birds darted around the lower foliage of a tall conifer. (Judging by the leaves, I think the tree is a cypress of some sort, but I’m not entirely sure). These birds were not easy to track but, looking through the binoculars, I could see that they were Goldcrests – the smallest bird in the British Isles and, in fact, Europe. These tiny birds are rarely longer than 9.5cm (3.7 in), with a wingspan no greater than 15.5 cm (6.1 in). On average, they weigh just 6g ( less than 0.25 oz) and are often described as weighing the same as a twenty-pence piece.

    Goldcrest

The Goldcrest has whitish-grey underparts, olive-green upperparts and two contrasting white wing bars, and a distinctive yellow crest on its head, from which it gets its name. The male has a smudge of orange running through the centre of its yellow crest, although this is not always visible: presumably it becomes so when it ‘displays’ during the breeding season. So, the Goldcrest in the photographs could be either male or female. And kudos to Stu – considering how active these birds were as they probed the cones and leaves for food – the photographs turned out really well.

    Goldcrests are actually quite a common bird in the British Isles, where resident birds are joined by migrant birds from Scandinavia during the winter months, although neither of us had actually seen them ‘live’ before. And despite our climate becoming warmer, Goldcrests are still susceptible to the cold: they can ‘burn off’ a lot of body weight overnight when the temperature drops, even when they huddle together. It had been a cold night – and it didn’t climb above 5°C for the whole of the morning – so probably these Goldcrests were replenishing lost energy.  

Dipper about to submerge itself

    Earlier in the morning we had seen a White-throated dipper – in fact we traced it to a couple of different spots along the River Alyn. Over time, we’ve noticed that Dippers seem to favour the faster-flowing white water of the river. This one first performed its characteristic bobbing dance, before submerging itself in the river in search of food. Very entertaining!

Dipper showing white eyelid feathers as it blinks

Grey wagtails also hunt in areas of the river where there is fast-running water, but though both species’ territories overlap, somehow they’re both able to share the river’s resources without too much disputation, as far as we can make out. We often see both species out and about at the same time, as we did today.

Grey wagtail on the roof of the mill house

The Grey wagtail flew off before it could be photographed although it – or perhaps another wagtail, we can’t be sure – appeared a little later on the roof of the old mill which is the one in the picture. While some birds are camera-shy, the same can’t be said of our old friend the Robin: a born star that just loves being photographed!

Robin posing for the camera

The important stuff

The Mill House café (Tŷ’r Felin) provided us with much needed sustenance after all that hard work. A cappuccino and a Chocolate Biscoff each soon restored our equilibrium!